I'm really impressed by your work! Replacing parts by printed part designed to work better is definitely a way to go. On my Marui Hunter, I choose to add up reinforcement rather than replace things, but keeping the chassis the way it is while the weakness point are mainly the chassis is making me doing so... Impressive result in any case you have here...
As for dying polyamide parts, I dyed some Tamiya rims in the past for my kids cars, and I'm not alone. There is lot of people doing this, without much issues in durability. And for Printed part, I don't think it would be different. As matter of fact, heating parts after they are 3D Printed using FDM process is one of the possibilities to reinforce them. It should not be different for MJF process, actually... And while you are talking about i.materialize.com, they actually propose the parts either grey either black (using dye post process). Another interesting thing about shapeways, I looked at they materials for MJF (as I'm considering doing some polyamide parts using the designs I did to get some solid parts for my own use), and it looks like what they call natural plastic when doing MJF is actually PA12. I also search for other providers, and the difference is often on the minimal amount you have to do for an order. And that is really where one is more easy to do than others...XLR8 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:50 pm Actually, I’ve simply painted the parts flat black. Without fully understanding the thermal properties for the printing material, I didn’t want to risk overheating the parts in dye only to watch them dissolve. The material is already black and fully opaque below the surface similar to the OE molded nylon parts so maybe they would only need a few minutes in dye to color the surfaces – I don’t know. Anyway, painting the parts seemed like the safest path. By the way, the slight grainy surface texture reminds me of sand castings.
